Psych: Call of the Mild by William Rabkin
Buy It Now: Amazon (paperback
Description: Shawn Spencer has always hated the wilderness-by which he means anything outside the delivery radius of his favorite pizza place. But Psych has been hired to solve a baffling case of industrial espionage, and the only way to catch the spy is to join their client’s bonding retreat-a grueling seven day backpacking mountain trek. But when one of the campers turns up with a bullet in the head, Shawn and Gus soon realize that sheer cliffs, rampaging bears, and freeze- dried pineapple aren’t the greatest threats they face.
This review is based on a copy I bought myself.
Marron’s Review:
Those of you who are fans of the USA Network television series Psych should be delighted to know that there are now a few books out based on the show. Amongst these is the hilarious murder-mystery Call of the Mild.
Written by Hollywood mystery writer William Rabkin, Call of the Mild has a strong grasp on the characters of Psych and manages to give us a fairly strong story that easily fits into the world that we see on TV every week.
Shawn and Gus are hired for what they think will be a simple case: a school teacher has lost her necklace during a field trip to a nature park, and hires the not-so-psychic duo to retrieve it for her. Of course, things are never as simple as they appear, and after being accosted by a gun-wielding mime (yes, you read that right) and finding the reclaimed necklace stolen, things can only take a turn for the worse. When more than one person turns up dead, Shawn’s father Henry is pulled out of retirement and onto the case — but only with Shawn’s word that he and Gus won’t get involved with the murder investigation.
Shawn swears not to investigate the murder, but decides to continue to looking into the mystery of the necklace, and the detective duo soon find themselves hired by one of the most powerful men in Santa Barbara — and right smack dab in the middle of the wilderness on a corporate retreat. If that wasn’t bad enough, there’s also a murderer in the midst of the lawyers on the retreat, someone who is killing off the others one by one.
This book really has a few good things going for it, especially for fans of the show. The characterization for all of the main characters is spot on, for starters. From Gus getting dehydrated in the nature park and thinking a children’s train ride is a monster chasing him to Shawn’s letting Gus wander around the park while he goes to the lost and found and claims the missing necklace within minutes of arriving, the individual characters and their interactions and reactions to one another are just as you would see on the show. The characterizations for Henry and Lassiter are pretty great, too, and it seems like it would be so for O’Hara as well if she had a bigger part in the book.
Along with the characterization of the individuals in the book, the story is also pretty strong. Rabkin has written scripts for several mystery shows, including Diagnosis Murder, the Cosby Mysteries, Likely Suspects, Martial Law, Monk, and – of course – Psych, so he has a strong grasp on the structure of mystery writing, from set-up to leaving clues throughout the book, to the actual solving of the mystery and fitting everything together to make sense from the seemingly unrelated clues. Combine this with his ability to write Shawn and Gus so well, and you get an excellent and enjoyable story.
Rabkin even manages to poke fun at the series in a lighthearted way, nearly breaking the fourth wall as Shawn makes references to “LOST” (without actually naming the show of course), and one of the lawyers on the wilderness retreat complains that he’s not making any sense, and is just dropping references randomly as if hoping that his “audience” will pick up on them. There are, of course, many pop-culture references within the book, just like the television show, and I feel like that helps to “seal the deal” as far as how the book matches up to the series it’s based upon.
The way the book ends, much like the wrap-up of an episode, is pretty funny, too.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I’ve only read one of the other Psych novels, A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read, and it, too, was a great read. All five Psych novels currently available are written by Rabkin, with the most recent addition, Mind-Altering Murder just released at the beginning of this month. If you’re a fan of the TV series, or even if you’ve only seen a few episodes and thought it was kind of funny but really love a good mystery novel –- with a heavy smattering of comedy — then this is a book that is definitely worth reading.
